May 28, 2017

At the Armor-and Ambivalence Café...

IMG_1438

... you can, in writing, appropriate anything you want.

(Photo taken on my iPhone yesterday at "Samurai: The Way of the Warrior" at the Chazen Museum ("a selection of more than ninety objects from one of the most important collections of Japanese arms and armor outside of Japan... armor, lacquered objects, helmets, swords, sword guards, saddles, stirrups, arrows, quivers, and bows from the Museo Stibbert in Florence, Italy").

42 comments:

Robert J. said...

Years ago museums almost universally banned photography of exhibits. Now I suppose they've given up since phone photos are universal. Do most places only let people get away with phone photos, or could you bring in a bigger camera and use it as well?

(Food used to be banned in libraries, too, but that's also gone by the wayside.)

dustbunny said...

Hoping Althouse will blog about the dismantling of a sculpture purchased by the Walker Art Center in Mpls due to protests from the local community. Looks like censorship to me.

George M. Spencer said...

Strange but true...Former CIA director John Brennan cast his first vote for president in 1976 for....

a) Ford
b) Carter
c) Gus Hall, Communist Party USA

The answer really is (c).

Then, in reading about that strangeness, I come across an article from "The American Spectator" which says...
[1980] is Dr. John Drew, who knew Obama at Occidental precisely then. Drew headed the campus Marxist organization, and Obama was introduced to him (by Drew’s girlfriend) as a fellow communist. I’ve interviewed Drew numerous times going back to 2007-8. I quote him at length in my book on Frank Marshall Davis, The Communist. Drew told me on-the-record about the moment he first met Obama, who was introduced to him as “one of us.”

“Obama was already an ardent Marxist when I met in the fall of 1980,” said Drew. “I know it’s incendiary to say this, but Obama was basically a Marxist-Leninist.” He underscored how Obama, in Dreams from My Father, candidly recalled attending “socialist conferences” and how he “hung out” with Marxist professors, but what Obama did not explain, noted Drew, is that he “was in 100 percent, total agreement with these Marxist professors.”

Too bizarre.

Matt Sablan said...

"Do most places only let people get away with phone photos, or could you bring in a bigger camera and use it as well?"

-- As a hobbyist photographer, it matters on the exhibit. Some exhibits can actually be damaged by flash photography, so cameras (and eventually once they realize phones now have that capability, camera phones) are banned.

Others, there's no real reason to stop people from taking pictures. Even places that ban pictures, like the museum at the Navy Yard in Washington, will let you take pictures if you ask (I got a bunch when I was still doing a blog.)

Anonymous said...

"Frank Paul Zeidler (September 20, 1912 – July 7, 2006) was an American Socialist politician and Mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, serving three terms from April 20, 1948 to April 18, 1960. He was the most recent Socialist mayor of any major American city."

rhhardin said...

In 1960 I got written permission to sketch a lute in a museum in Vienna. They're big on order.

Guildofcannonballs said...

If you people want, and have a lot of cash, I can help to coordinate money for Mizzou style protests and riots that will cripple all higher ed save Hillsdale and Liberty U. and a few others. My thanks to Black Lives Matter for doing all they have done to raise awareness of how hatefully racist they are, kudos. Nobody could have done it better.

We can triple-decimate our enemies, but you gotta step up and get me a few million to walk around with, and hire some council once the fascists D.A.'s get wise to their golden teat being taken away.

You wanna tell your grandkids you shoveled shit during the war, or funded the victory both monetarily and ideologically?

Get your damn checkbook already alright, cripes...

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

A Socialist mayor of Milwaukee is one thing.

A Communist CIA director is quite another.

Not to mention a Marxist president.

Bad Lieutenant said...

I'm intrigued by your ideas, and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. What are your qualifications?

Bad Lieutenant said...

That was for Guild of cannonballs.

How is it possible for a Communist to be elected or appointed to office in this country? Disgusting.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

It's worth noting what a safe, prosperous, and racially integrated place Milwaukee has become as a result of all those decades of socialist and Democrat rule.

Suburbanites would love it if their kids got to go to MPS and there have been no racially charged incidents whatsoever in recent years.

Hagar said...

@St. George,
Don't go overboard about this. Anyone from whom Barack Obama wants something is apt to get the feeling "he is one of us." Obama is good at this; it is what he does, whether among campus radicals or at the Annenberg foundation.
Obama has not shown much belief in "the dictatorship of the proletariat" that I know about, but he does talk a lot about "the arc of history," so he might have absorbed that much of Marx's notions, though having come to somewhat different conclusions after another century and a half of observation.

Hagar said...

In fact, this "Marxist-Leninist" socialism turned out to be a bit like Anthropological Global Warming" theory, didn't it?

C R Krieger said...

Are those three fingered hand guards or do they just look that way?

Regards — Cliff

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

The world of samurai armor is flooded with skillfully done outright fakes, cobbled together genuine bits, and inferior pieces altered to enhance their value. Just like politics.

Bay Area Guy said...

I watched Meet the Press this morning. The whole show was devoted to Russian Collusion! and Jared Kushner!

They talked about mysterious back channels with the Russian Ambassador. It seemed quite nefarious, but there wasn't much there there.

Thank God for Kim Strassel of the WSJ. She's real smart, cuts through the fog.

walter said...

From a pilot for a new WPR series called (heh, heh) Beta:

Author Alison Kinney Traces Symbolic Significance Of The Hood(ie)

Writer Ponders Idea Of 'Bringing A President To A Knife Fight'

Give feedback on the WPR Next pilot programs

Shane said...

You can appropriate anything you want?

Well you can celebrate anything you want
Well you can penetrate any place you go
Well you can radiate ev'rything you are
Well you can imitate ev'ryone you know
Well you can indicate ev'rything you see
Well you can syndicate any boat you row

walter said...

Commenting Policy
Wisconsin Public Radio and WPR.org welcome civil, on-topic comments and opinions that advance the discussion from all perspectives of an issue.

Comments for this thread are now closed.

0 comments

Achilles said...

Liberal Tolerance.

Just for fun and only if you want to read a long list of stupid tweets by leftists.

8th graders!?!?!

To say that our public education system breeds intolerance and stupidity is boring at this point.

Ann Althouse said...

"Years ago museums almost universally banned photography of exhibits. Now I suppose they've given up since phone photos are universal. Do most places only let people get away with phone photos, or could you bring in a bigger camera and use it as well?"

There was a sign saying no flash photography, but I still asked the guard if non-flash photography was okat before taking pictures. He said yes. I didn't sneak this.

The stuff is very well protected... and obviously not under copyright.

Hagar said...

...Ye shall have no other gods besides me.
But we do, don't we?

Michael K said...

"Thank God for Kim Strassel of the WSJ."

She is all I read on the Ed page anymore.

Big Mike said...

Says something about medieval Japan that they turned weapons and armor, and the practice of hand-to-hand combat, into art forms.

Robert J. said...

^^ Some years ago I visited Durham Cathedral in the UK, which had a "no photos" policy. I had been carrying my big camera around town, so I slung it over my back to show that I didn't intend to use it and proceeded to wander around. When I got into a back chapel with beautiful light, the voice of Satan called to me and I brought the camera around and stole a picture.

An interesting case for moral analysis. If there had been adults around I wouldn't have done it for fear of censure. If there had been children around I wouldn't have done it so as not to set a bad example for them. But no one was around. Can one "steal" a picture? If so, what is the thing stolen? (Perhaps one of the last remaining bits of St. Cuthbert's soul.)

Bob Ellison said...

Photography prohibition is trademark protection. The "no flash" thing was always a joke.

Marc in Eugene said...

Has anybody been paying attention to the incident in Portland Friday night that saw a knife-wielding racist &c &c kill two men and injure a third on the TriMet train? The now-jailed man had been verbally abusing two women, one of whom was dressed in a hijab (so the story goes: I don't believe anything until the dust settles a bit); he is 'known' to the police, has a felony record and has been involved in more than one racist/anti-immigrant/white nationalist demo. One source said that the cops were under the impression that he was 'troubled' in one way or another. In any case, here's a violent right-wing thug murderer of the sort that the Left is always concerned about.

What most caught my attention was the almost immediate media spotlight yesterday (well, it was one fellow at The Oregonian...) turned on a poor transit employee who, on her Facebook page, said some impolitic things about politicising a tragedy &c &c. Today of course all the right-thinkers in Portland are uniting to be love and tolerance (and free immigration and free healthcare and all the rest of it) and thereby to prevent such a tragedy ever happening again.

Paco Wové said...

"the incident in Portland Friday night"

The only thing I've really noticed is that the perpetrator appears to have been a rootless semi-leftist, sort of like Jared Lochner.

Ann Althouse said...

"Hoping Althouse will blog about the dismantling of a sculpture purchased by the Walker Art Center in Mpls due to protests from the local community. Looks like censorship to me."

Thanks for the tip. Will blog it later.

Ann Althouse said...

"The "no flash" thing was always a joke."

No, it isn't. The flash is damaging to the artwork (if there's a lot of it and it's uncontrolled). Many pigments need to be protected from the light. The room I was in, for example, was kept semi-dark.

Quite aside from damaging the artwork, flashes going off disturb the viewing experiences that other people are having.

Paco Wové said...

"its creator, L.A.-based artist Sam Durant, had intended to raise awareness about capital punishment and address America's violent past, critics and protesters called the work insensitive, saying it trivializes Dakota history and genocide"

File under "the left eats itself".

Martha said...

MUST SEE—Lindsay Graham on STATE of the UNION blows up the MSM narrative not only on Kushner but also about Comey's reliance on a "fake" memo about Loretta Lynch titling the investigation into Hillary's emails toward exoneration for Hillary. Did not think Lindsay had it in him—he swats away Dana Bash's repeated attempts to ignore the import of what he is charging.


http://nypost.com/2017/05/28/lindsey-graham-comey-intervened-in-the-election-over-fake-info/

Marc in Eugene said...

Paco Wové, Hadn't read anything about the Portland murders since first thing this morning. Christian's image as a 'white supremecist' seems to be firmly fixed already in the media portrait, whatever the truth turns out to be. That BuzzFeed thread is truly incoherently crazy; "I will kill the entire world if I have to just to talk to myself the way I want if need be". I suggested this morning that one person on that train with a gun would have been a lot more use than hundreds of Portlanders 'coming together' after the fact. "What you think about expands," reads one of the placards photographed at NPR, "Be positive." Sure.

Fernandinande said...

Bob Ellison said...
Photography prohibition is trademark protection. The "no flash" thing was always a joke.


Camera flash doesn't hurt artwork, but it can be obnoxious to other people.

Lucien said...

As much as folks talk about judicial decisions in general, and those of the Supreme Court in particular, being politically motivated, the Justices themselves generally espouse the position that they take their oaths seriously and decide cases based on their honest opinions of what the law is.

Now (and not for the first time in history) Dahlia Lithwick suggests that Justice Kennedy ought to delay retiring from the Court for political reasons, and infers (lord knows how) that the recent en banc decision by the Fourth Circuit concerning the administration's "travel ban" is a tacit plea to Justice Kennedy to do so.

Could there be a deeper betrayal of the oath taken by the Justices than to think "I'm not really up to doing the job anymore, but screw the parties who come before me and their hopes for justice, I'm going to hang on until there's someone in the White House I disagree with less"? What kind of journalist could hope for justices who think that way?

Bob Ellison said...

OK, so let's just take incredibly high-quality digital images of these paintings, and post them online.

What's that you say? We've already done that?

So why are we complaining about flash bulbs?

Give you a clue: it's ownership of the property.

Ann Althouse said...

"Camera flash doesn't hurt artwork..."

I've seen that.

It would mean that all those dark rooms in museums are unnecessary. And yet you see your own curtains and upholstery fade in sunlight.

It's one thing to have the question whether a professional photographer can make a photo for the museum's website or a serious art book. I can see accepting that. But to have any amateur museumgoer take a flash snapshot... that's not an acceptable way to treat something made with pigments.

Ann Althouse said...

"Could there be a deeper betrayal of the oath taken by the Justices than to think "I'm not really up to doing the job anymore, but screw the parties who come before me and their hopes for justice, I'm going to hang on until there's someone in the White House I disagree with less"? What kind of journalist could hope for justices who think that way?"

Ironically, it gives power to the President and the Senate to go ahead and be vigorously ideological when the next position comes up.

The Justices at least try to be inconspicuous about that kind of thinking. People like Lithwick are blowing the Justices' cover.

David Baker said...

I'm a bit surprised anyone would see the court as impartial, Dahlia Lithwick notwithstanding. I'm also disappointed President Trump treats them as legitimate, and therefore worthy of going through the motions. And in the process, doing more harm than good.

Hopefully, the next vacancy will initiate its collapse.

StephenFearby said...

On another note, the following may support demands to create trans-species bathrooms:

Daily Caller, May 27, 2017

Scholar Explains His Hippopotamus Identity In Peer-Reviewed Paper

'A PhD student explained his “transpecies” hippopotamus identity and why he prefers being “transpecies” to transgender in a peer-reviewed paper published in May.

Florentin Félix Morin, a French PhD student who studied at the University of Arizona in the spring 2017 semester, published a paper discovered Saturday entitled “EGO HIPPO: The subject as metaphor,” in which he explained “how his metaphorical hippo-self is collectively produced and performed.”

“For a while, if someone was asking me how I ‘identified,’ I would joke about being a hippopotamus trapped in a human’s body,” says Morin, a transgender man, “later, a human trapped in a hippopotamus’ body, until my humorous ‘truth’ solidified and I began announcing myself as an old butch hippo dyke trapped in a young human faggy transboy’s body.”

“Such an ‘identity’ allowed me to (verbally) escape, all at once, several sets of categorization that govern human bodies (‘gender,’ ‘sexuality,’ age),” he continued.'

'...“I do strongly love when my friends call me ‘hippo,’ refer to my ‘paws’ and pretend that they see no difference between me and one of my stuffed hippopotamuses, except that I’m a little bigger than most of them,” writes Morin.

The PhD student said that identifying as a hippopotamus instead of a boy or a girl is a “form of resistance to the (trans)gender policing of [his] body.”'

http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/27/scholar-explains-his-hippopotamus-identity-in-peer-reviewed-paper/

Journal Angelaki
Journal of the Theoretical Humanities
Volume 22, 2017 - Issue 2: tranimacies: intimate links between animal and trans* studies

Section II. Lessons from the Beastiary
EGO HIPPO

Abstract:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0969725X.2017.1322822?scroll=top&needAccess=true

Guildofcannonballs said...

"... an old butch hippo dyke trapped in a young human faggy transboy’s body.”

That is a phase we all go through, some with more honesty and transparency than others.

walter said...

Hey Guildy, speak for thy self..